


Gravitational Constant

by Roving_Matilda



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-15
Updated: 2013-08-15
Packaged: 2017-12-23 13:14:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/926872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roving_Matilda/pseuds/Roving_Matilda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p> Dr. Chakwas has a conversation with Zaeed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gravitational Constant

**Author's Note:**

> Rating: PG <—Again? Seriously? Dammit, I should write porn before I forget how to.

Sitting in the medbay, frowning at the silence of the Normandy, Dr. Karin Chakwas stared down into the tumbler in front of her. She knew that if she shouldn’t be drinking now, that in the end it wasn’t going to make her feel better. For now though, she wanted to stop feeling everything. She couldn’t open any of the cabinets or drawers that would give her quick relief, though, still ever the moral doctor. The doors to the elevator opened, sounding deafening even through the glass without the ambient noise of the crew to muffle it.

The mercenary walked out, looked around the empty room before noticing her through the glass. The muscles on his face danced as he smirked at her, scar pulling and stretching skin, she felt a tingle of vague familiarity, just like every other time she’d seen him on the ship. He walked over to the window before gesturing towards the door. She stared at him disdainfully, before looking down and nodding.

The hiss of the door made her flinch, but she still couldn’t bring herself to look at him, even as the chair next to her scraped across the floor. “Did you need attention?” she asked, not sure she’d even be able to help him at this point.

"Nah just came to see how you were holding up," he replied.

She looked at him startled and said, “What?”

He laughed, dry and rough and she finds herself shivering as an old memory tries to float to the surface. “I’ll be fine.”

"You sure will be, but I’m not concerning myself with then, I’m asking about now."

Karin turned to stare at him for a long moment. Before the collectors came he kept to himself in the lower level of the ship. She’d heard the crew talking about him after he’d come aboard, she hadn’t caught his name and they hadn’t interacted until now. “Why would you be worried about me?”

"Well, darling, I’m intrigued by you," he chuckled again, hand firmly grasping her wrist, stopping the slap.

"Get your hand off of me," she hissed.

"Well, now that’s just unfair, you were going to put your hands on me," he teased, leaning in closer.

Trying to jerk her arm away she growled in frustration as his grip held firm. “Still so feisty, aren’t you darling.”

Freezing, she gasped as hazy memories roared past long-built defenses staring closer at him she fought the embarrassment. She was a grown woman now; there was no reason to be embarrassed in front of this man. “There we go, you remember now don’t you?” he smiled, brushing a hand down her face, laughing when she pulled away.

"I can’t believe you even remember."

He let her go, finally, and leaned back in his seat. “It’s hard to forget the ones that leave you marked,” he says, hand absently rubbing over his left shoulder, where a bite would have scarred without treatment she was sure.

Smiling, feeling comfortable for the first time in the three days since she’d been rescued, she grabbed the tumbler and took a deep swallow. Enjoying the comforting fire burning through her, she joked, “I suppose it is hard to forget someone that tried to kill you,”

Michael, or Cain, or whatever he was calling himself now, laughed loudly, hand slapping on the desk. “Plenty of people want to kill me, few ever mark me.”

Grinning, Karin, took another sip of the alcohol, before nodding toward the bottle and arching an eyebrow. Not needing further permission, he grabbed it and a glass. “So again I ask; how are you holding up?”

"I’ve definitely been better, I suppose you could say. It’s just so quiet here now."

"Go down to cargo if you need noise. Jack is teaching Grunt about music other than Krogan battle chants or clan histories. I needed an escape if I’m being honest. Then I thought I’d try the whole being a good person thing," he smiled at her laugh.

"Not really a good fit for you. What’re you calling yourself these days?" she asked no anger in her voice, not like last time.

"Zaeed Massani, the best mercenary money can buy at your service."

"Now that fits you. I never thought of you as a Michael, maybe Cain, but definitely not Michael," she stared at him over the rim of her tumbler.

"You never would call me Michael," he shrugged, appearing unfazed.

Karin tilted her head, sighing, “And you never learned to not call me darling.”

“So is this how we’re going to spend the evening, drinking some of your expensive alcohol, reminiscing over old times?” Zaeed asked, eye a seemingly bluer fire now than thirty years ago.

Setting the glass on the counter Karin turned towards the man that twice changed her life, altering her path to lead her to now, where she once again was facing him. “No, we’re not going to reminisce about old times, nor are we going to create new ones. You are a very interesting man, Zaeed,” she let the name roll over her tongue, testing it, enjoying the weight of it, and then continued, “However, twice now you came into my life, and twice you completely changed it. I’ve had enough things happen over the last few months, hell, years, to know better than to repeat old mistakes. I’ve already shamed myself enough from the last time, let’s not add a third.”

She stood proudly, staring into the almost unrecognizable face of her first love, and first betrayal. Karin was no longer the seventeen year old girl who looked to the skies and wondered what it was like traveling through them, nor was she the twenty-six year old about to make her dreams come true by becoming an Alliance Doctor. And he was no longer the dashingly, handsome twenty-two year old that had seduced her as part of a cover, long before he realized it was easier to get away with it if you were quick and no one saw your face, nor the unwelcome familiar face in the bar on an alien planet. Now they were older, and Karin certainly considered herself wiser. “Have a good evening, Zaeed.”

“Karin,” he said softly, and she clenched her hands tight before striding through the door.

“I lied,” he told the empty room, “I remembered you even before you’d marked me.”


End file.
